


losing the hat

by multicorn



Series: we are shaped like stars [4]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Oral History, Racism, Slavery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7725562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multicorn/pseuds/multicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shrewsberry is beaten up, and his hat is stolen.  We only know this, historically, because he needed a new hat.  But he needs and finds comfort, too, elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	losing the hat

**Author's Note:**

> For this and all of my Hamilton fic: I use both the musical and history as sources, drawing on them for things I can use.
> 
> I'm not always compliant with either - and especially with regards to history, sometimes that's on purpose, and sometimes it's not.

My name's Shrewsberry. Back in the war, I served under Lt. Col. John Laurens. Well, you see. I was his slave.

I had been working on the Mepkin plantation in South Carolina when the war broke out. I went North to Philadelphia with Henry Laurens when he was called on to be a part of the Continental Congress. And in the fall of 1777, he sent me on to General Washington’s camp to serve his son John.

Well, I hadn’t been with the army for more than a few weeks when my hat was stolen. It happened like this.

I was coming back from visiting the Carolina regiments. Laurens had sent me to get a tally of how many men remained to each unit, and I had the numbers on a piece of paper in my pocket. It was a lovely fall day, the sort you only get maybe a handful of times a year. The sky was blue as a robin’s egg, and I was kicking piles of leaves down the dusty path, and whistling to myself as I walked.

I was also thinking about the paper in my pocket, and what sort of trade I might be able to make for it with the British, if I could find a way to escape. At the time, there was a ring of guards staked in posts out around the camp, to catch anyone who tried to desert, and there were patrols riding further out, too. So in the end I never did risk it.

But these were the thoughts going through my mind when all of a sudden a couple of soldiers stepped out into the path in front of me. They came out of the trees quietly, and stood there side by side, both of them holding their arms out from their sides so that together they were blocking the way.

One of them said, “where do you think you’re going?” I can still remember his face. Like it was yesterday: he was shorter than me, with yellow teeth, and stringy brown hair.

I didn’t answer him. I was biting my tongue so I wouldn’t get in more trouble for answering back. Then the second one said, “didn’t you hear him? Carry some water for us, we need a bath.” And do you know what? Both of them did, I remember noticing that at the time, because I thought it was funny. But I still wasn’t going to carry for them.

So I said, just as careful and polite as could be, “my master is Lt. Col. Laurens, and he’ll be expecting me.” I knew he outranked them, you see. They were privates. So I hoped that maybe they’d see sense, and I walked a few more steps towards them, and I said, “please excuse me.” I wasn’t feeling the “please,” but I thought they were bluffing and they’d give it up if I didn’t first.

Well, I guessed wrong. The first one said, “excuse you, like hell.” And then he hit me.

It was a hard blow, right to the face, and I wasn’t expecting it. I staggered backwards a few feet. Drifts of dry leaves were around my feet, and it took me a second to recover.

Then I said, “what the hell was that.” I was angry, and there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to hide it anymore.

The second man said, “you don’t belong to no lieutenant colonel.” His arms were thin and his belly was thick, like he’d been fed well but not lately, and his laugh was as ugly as a hyena’s, a high dry grating sound. He said, “I hear that Laurens says he doesn’t believe in slavery. So I say, that makes you up for grabs!”

I knew that was a bad sign for me, the shrill note of triumph ringing in his voice. So I tried to make a break for it. I aimed right between the two men, and I backed up a few more feet so I had a good head start at running past them. But even as I pushed them aside the first man grabbed my arm, and when I tried to wrench it away the other man grabbed my other arm and he also somehow got his arm around my neck from the behind.

Well, I screamed and I thrashed and I struggled. I think I was still more angry than I was afraid. I tried to wriggle out of their grips, and I tried to kick, but every time I almost threw one off the other one got me again. While I was fighting, one of them hollered into the trees, for someone called Ben, and a third man came crashing out of the forest.

He helped the other two men hold me still, so that I couldn’t move away. And then the first man started to beat me all around the head.

I couldn’t do anything but take it. I tried to bite his fingers, and I kept trying to see if I could squirm out of my captors’ grip. I yelled as loudly as I could in case anyone who might hear and come would have some ideas about keeping order, or about these devils’ idea of fun. But nothing I did made any difference. That man knocked my hat off into the mud, and he battered my face til my nose was broken and it was all swelling up into one giant bruise.

Eventually he must have gotten tired of beating me. I don’t know. Then they were all gone, and I was grateful. They went back into the woods, I guess. I sank down onto my knees right on the path. I couldn’t keep holding myself up. I covered my face with my hands, carefully, because it was throbbing fit to kill. I didn’t cry. But I couldn’t feel anything but the pain for a little while.

After some time it got better, or I got used to it. Either way, I got myself up, and I started looking for my hat. I couldn’t see it anywhere.

Now, I was aware that the men who had beaten me might still be somewhere nearby. I was as quiet as a rabbit when I went to look in the woods. But I didn’t see any sign of them, nor did I find my hat.

I realized that they must have taken it. And, this response might seem strange to you, but the empty hollow of sadness they had left me with began to fill back up with rage. As if accosting me wasn’t enough; as if beating me wasn’t enough; those absolute bastards had the gall to take my hat away from me, too. I didn’t own much, back then, and that blue velvet hat I’d been wearing with the red cockade was the most beautiful thing I had. I hoped that those soldiers died a miserable death in the war, and soon.

You know what? I have no idea what ever did happen to them.

So. Then I had to report back to Laurens. No matter that I was beaten and bloody, I’d been given a job to do, and I had no choice but to do it. At least I still had the paper in my pocket, so I wouldn’t have limp back through the regiments and ask for their headcounts again, , but honestly? I’d rather have kept my hat, and lost the paper.

~

Laurens didn’t look at me until after I’d given him the paper, and he’d sat there staring at it thinking who knows what for a while. He thought he was so much better than the other slave owners, because he liked to talk sometimes about freedom and equality. But he didn’t treat me any better than his father did.

Anyway. When he finally looked at me, he asked me, “did you lose your hat?” There I was, obviously bruised and bloody, and he cared more about the hat.

I said, “it was stolen.” There was no use in trying to say anything else. I would never be able to get it back, or replace it on my own.

Then he got up from his desk and he came to stand just a hair’s-breadth away from me, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. He looked at one side of my face, and then he turned my chin so he could stare at the other. I felt like a horse being inspected.

Then he asked me, “have you been fighting?” I don’t mind saying, I was so mad. I didn’t show it, of course, I couldn’t. I simply told him the facts. I said, “three soldiers caught me and beat me while I was on the path coming back here. And they stole my hat.”

He frowned then, which I guess showed some kind of feeling of sympathy. He asked, “do you know who they were?”

How in the world could I know? Well, that’s what I said, and I yelled it, too. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. And it was nice to see him jump. And then I apologized, so he wouldn’t get mad, and I said, “they were privates, not officers, and one of them called another one Ben. That’s all I know.”

Laurens said that he was sorry, but he couldn’t do anything, and then he sighed real loud, as if he were some kind of victim here. Then he said that he’d write to his father for a new hat, but I should take care not to lose anything he gave me again.

I hadn’t failed to take care, and I told him so, and when he me asked what I’d done I explained. They’d wanted me to stop and serve them, and I had refused. I was still feeling steamed about that demand, and maybe it showed, because he told me that next time something like that happened I should think about just doing whatever I was asked. For my own good! He wasn’t ordering me, but as if it might make my life easier! What an impudent rascal - pardon me. But there was nothing I could say to that piece of nonsense.

So I just kept standing there. He kept looking at me, so I guess he felt awkward, but I didn’t. I was used to standing around and pretending to be furniture just in case he wanted anything done. But he said, “you know that I’ll free you when I can.” He had said so the first day I came, and he repeated it every so often, whenever he felt especially guilty over something, I think. Of course I didn’t know whether he would or not, or if he’d even have the chance. and I couldn’t make him keep any sort of promise, so it wasn’t worth much to me.

He did. When his father died, yes. It was 1793.

So afterwards, he finally told me I was dismissed for the day. I thought about going down into the basement of the house, where I slept, but it was too early in the day, so I went back outside instead. Then I set off on another path. I went to the hospital tent.

I didn’t go to the hospital tent because I was injured, mind you. What an idea that would have been. There was nothing they could do for me there. And the sounds of grown men crying, and moaning like they were being tortured, by the devil himself, day and night. And the smell! Oh, the stench of that place. I’ve never smelled the like since.

So, no, I wasn’t going there for doctoring.

I had another reason. Her name was Anna. She was a freedwoman, she came from Maryland, and she worked as a nurse in the camp. She had these thick twisted black braids that went down to her waist, and the sweetest face shaped like a peach that you ever did see. Oh, where was I.

That’s it. So I went down to the hospital tent to see Anna. She was standing in the corner washing some pans or something when I walked in, but as soon as I called her name and she saw me and saw how banged up I looked, she let out this little gasp and let the pan drop right there. She rushed right over to me as if she had wings on her feet, and she asked if I was hurt anywhere else.

If that wasn’t the most curative thing I’d heard all afternoon! Just that question. I shook my head carefully when I told her, no, just my head, and she told me to sit down right there on one of the empty cots, and she’d clean the wounds for me.

It stung, even though I could tell she was trying to be gentle. The only cloth she had was rough, and things had already started to scab over. But I distracted myself pretty well from the pain by thinking about how I had my own ministering angel here on earth, how I was laid in her bosom, pretty much, as she was wiping my brow.

When she was finished she told me I could sit up straight on the cot, and she put aside her rag to come sit beside me. She asked me what had happened, and I told her as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to dwell on it, but the way she winced as I told her as if she was feeling the hurt herself did gratify my feelings somewhat.

And then she asked me how did I feel. I said that I was still in pain, but that I felt much better now, because I had an angel here to look over me.

Oh, man. The way she smiled it was like she was trying not to but she couldn’t help it. I’d been trying to flirt with her for some little time you see, but it wasn’t until just then that I knew she returned any feelings for me. She looked down, and she was always so bold but she couldn’t keep looking at me right then.

And she said, “I’m no angel, I’m just a nurse, I’m just doing my job.”

But I knew the truth alright. And that’s what I told her, I said, “hush. Do you think any one of these white nurses would have helped me if you hadn’t?”

I didn’t need medical help. But I’d been beaten up, and I sure could use something.

“Maybe not,” she said. She was twisting her hands, in front of her, back and forth. I was watching them go. “But,” she said, “I’d like to think that one of them would.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I didn’t want to win that argument. So instead I said, “you asked me how I felt.” And she hummed, like a harmony to my words.

I said, “the outside of my head is in pain, but it will recede soon enough. But it's the inside of my head that troubles me. How can they do this to us? Not just those soldiers who beat me up, but the whole camp. How can they say this war is for freedom while ignoring us standing right here next to them?”

She didn’t say anything that time. She just took my hand and held it between both of hers, until it felt like her fingers and mine were made from the same flesh.

Oh, I was young and in love those days.

Did I ever see her again?

Oh, yes. In Philadelphia.

After I was finally freed - this would have been 1793 - I went north to Philadelphia again. I’d heard it was a good place to go. And one day when I was at the market, when I was buying vegetables, who else should I run into but Anna! She was buying her vegetables too.

So we got to talking and she asked me question after question, what was I doing in the city and what had I been doing in all the years since we’d seen each other last. It took me so long to tell her, especially since she kept asking more and more questions, that I ended up going back to her room with her, and we had dinner together that night.

Anyway, that’s another story. It doesn’t belong in your history. But maybe if you want me to I’ll tell it another time.

**Author's Note:**

> (this is not a story about how John Laurens is a good person.)
> 
> (and i’m more than happy to hear - please - if you think i got anything wrong. comments of all sorts appreciated both here and to multsicorn on tumblr.)


End file.
